SICILY: An Evening Out of Visconti’s Il Gattopardo

Cineasts might consider getting ready for their New Year’s close-up in Sicily, where the luxury-villa company Think Sicily can arrange a special evening at Palermo’s privately owned, 18th-century Palazzo Gangi, the fantasy of Sicilian Baroque where Luchino Visconti filmed the iconic ballroom scenes in his 1963 classic, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard). After a multicourse chef’s tasting menu, paired with carefully selected wines, in that very same ballroom, there will be dancing and music followed by a fireworks display viewed from the palazzo’s terrace. At the end of the night, you and your guests (10 to 20 would be optimal) can retire to one of the outfitter’s nearby homes, the four-bedroom, fresco-walled Villa Tasca, for example, where, in 1881, Richard Wagner completed his masterpiece Parsifal.

Dinner for up to 20 from $13,000, Villa Tasca from $24,440 per week; 800-490-1107; thinksicily.com

Photo courtesy of Think Sicily

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VENICE: Royal Treatment Along the Canals

In-the-know travelers are well aware that Venice is often at its best in winter, when the crowds of summer are a distant memory. The normally sleepy off-season city is wide-eyed and fully awake for New Year’s Eve, however, featuring a preview of the forthcoming Carnevale festivities in the form of a huge fireworks display over Piazza San Marco. Italian luxury-vacation specialists Bellini Travel can pull out all the stops for the celebrations, securing the two dozen seats in the Royal Box of Teatro La Fenice—Venice’s recently reopened opera house and one of the most famously beautiful theaters in all Europe—for the annual New Year’s Eve concert, preceded by Champagne and canapés and followed by a private, after-hours tour of Basilica di San Marco.

Photo: Michele Crosera

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VENICE: Royal Treatment Along the Canals

Then it’s on to a private dinner, performances by Fenice musicians, and fireworks-watching at one of the canalside palazzi. The following day, should there be a need to wash away any lingering effects of the night before, participation in the traditional New Year’s Day dip in the waters of the Lido can be arranged.

REYKJAVIK: Nature’s Fireworks by Helicopter

Fireworks are well and good on New Year’s Eve, and there are plenty of places to see spectacular displays. But for the northern lights—nature’s own pyrotechnic extravaganza—you’re a bit more limited. Thankfully, some of the world’s best views of the aurora borealis (expected by NASA to be more impressive this year than at any time in the last half-century) are just a quick chopper ride from the rich social scene in Reykjavik.

Photo: Olgeir Andresson

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REYKJAVIK: Nature’s Fireworks by Helicopter

Über-hip bespoke-travel outfitter Black Tomato suggests a stay at the design-savvy 101 Hotel in the capital, with dinner at local favorite Fish Company. Then, hop a heli to southern Iceland, touching down to take in the lights and sip Champagne as the clock strikes midnight. Afterward, fly back to Reykjavik to continue the revelry or bed down at the nearby rustic-but-refined Hotel Rangá, and spend the first days of 2013 exploring Icelandic glaciers, volcanoes, and hot springs.

VIENNA: Have a Ball in High Austrian Style

Are those the romantic strains of a waltz? Vienna’s classic Kaiserball may be kicking off a new chapter this year—it’s being renamed “Le Grand Bal”—but it remains a highlight on the international New Year’s circuit. As ever, it will be held in the magisterial Hofburg Palace—the former home of the Habsburgs and now the seat of the Austrian republic—parts of which date back some 600 years.

Photo: Scott E. Barbour/Getty

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VIENNA: Have a Ball in High Austrian Style

The luxury central and eastern European travel experts at Exeter Internationalcan secure custom access to this black-tie-only event, including a ride to the ball in one of the horse-drawn fiacre carriages for which the city is famous, a red-carpet reception, and a gourmet dinner before the event officially opens to the general public.

RIO: A Bespoke Beachfront Bash

If you’re considering the road to Rio, be warned that the fireworks-viewing and rooftop festivities at the city’s famed Copacabana Palace Hotel are already wait-list-only. There’s still time, however, to book a stay at one of South America specialist Blue Parallel’stwo ocean-side Rio penthouses: the six-bedroom Sugarloaf or five-bedroom Corcovado.

The Corcovado penthouse is $45,000 per week; the Sugarloaf penthouse is $56,000 per week; 800-256-5307; blueparallel.com

RIO: A Bespoke Beachfront Bash

In either contemporary-style home, Blue Parallel can arrange a custom celebration to guests’ particular specifications—from Champagne to mojitos, samba to bossa nova, plus culinary delights reflecting the city’s diverse gastronomic influences. The penthouses’ large private terraces, each with its own swimming pool, afford perfect panoramic views of the two million–plus revelers celebrating on Copacabana beach below, and the fireworks that will explode above.

Photo courtesy of Blue Parallel

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ANTARCTICA: Black-Tie Times Cruising the Frozen Continent

Black tie? Check. Five-course dinner? Check. Giant icebergs, calving glaciers, six types of penguins—plus seals, dolphins, and whales? Check, check, check, and . . . check. Passengers aboard Silversea’s 132-passenger Silver Explorer will find all of the above during the company’s Holiday Antarctica sailing, which sets off from Ushuaia, Argentina. This 12-day journey combines the wonders of wildlife-watching and some of the most extraordinary natural vistas in the world with the kind of first-class luxuries for which Silversea is renowned. On New Year’s Eve itself, as the coast of Antarctica comes into view from the ship’s deck, guests will enjoy a gourmet meal, prepared by the Silver Explorer’s Relais & Châteaux–partnered restaurant and served on tables set with silver, crystal, china, and sparkling candles, followed by music, dancing, and a countdown to 2013.

CUBA: Havana and Beyond with the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although 2013 might well see further loosening of U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba, for now legal trips from the States are limited to certain purposes. The Met’s New Year’s trip to La Isla, organized by Academic Arrangements Abroad and licensed by the U.S. State Department,takes care of all such practical matters, while also affording its 20 to 30 guests up-close experiences with top local museum curators, government ministers, and working artists, many of whom will open their studios.

Photo: Natalie Maynor

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CUBA: Havana and Beyond with the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Falling in the middle of this eight-day journey, New Year’s Eve will bring travelers on an architectural walking tour of Cienfuegos, which garnered a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage List for its 19th-century Spanish Colonial architecture, and then to the nearby town of Trinidad for cocktails, dinner, music, and a festive midnight Champagne toast.

LONDON: An Eye on the Thames Fireworks

Capping off a Brit-tastic year that saw the Queen’s Jubilee and thesuccessful hosting of the Summer Olympics, the capital city will ring in 2013 with a grand fireworks display above the River Thames and the London Eye. Perhaps the most decadent way to watch will be through the eight huge picture windows within the two-bedroom, fifth-floor Royal Suite at the recently redone (by Pierre-Yves Rochon) Savoy,where you and your butler-attended guests could dine on a menu of Auguste Escoffier wonders (he was the hotel’s first head chef) while sipping Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill (he was a Savoy regular).

Photo: EPA/Daniel Deme

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LONDON: An Eye on the Thames Fireworks

For a more casual affair, head to Radio, the rooftop lounge of the new Norman Foster–designed Me London hotel,where the tenth-floor terrace, with views over the river and to the Eye beyond, will be prime fireworks-watching real estate.

Savoy Royal Suite from £13,000 per night, dinner from £150 per person, Pol Roger Cuvee, £265 per bottle; 800-788-683; savoylondon.com

BEIJING: China’s New New Year’s Tradition

Chinese New Year isn’t until February, but Beijing began getting in on the West’s act last year, with a midnight extravaganza at the city’s Temple of Heaven. Plans are under way now for a repeat performance at the Summer Palace’s Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha. Top China travel outfit Imperial Tourscan provide access to the festivities, putting guests up at the Aman hotel within the walls of the Summer Palace, the Qing dynasty compound of gardens and pavilions about a half hour from the city center. Through Imperial, visitors on the last day of 2012 could look back in time, with an afternoon at the Forbidden City (Beijing’s Buckingham Palace), and a traditional dinner at the Aman before the main event just next door.

MT. KILIMANJARO: Celebrating 2013 at the Top of the World

Here’s a New Year’s experience you’ll be talking about for decades: Micato Safaris can time its custom-tailored treks up Kenya’s Mt. Kilimanjaro so that adventurers make their final ascent in the wee hours of January 1, reaching the mountain’s summit at the crack of dawn and celebrating with a Champagne toast at the apex. These eight-day round-trip treks take a variety of routes, matching the path to the hardiness of the participant. (There’s no mountaineering or technical experience required and Micato’s camp staff arranges for porters to haul all gear, keeping everyone comfortable, but those who make the climb should be in relatively good shape.) And while Kili is no Everest, it’s no slouch, either: At 19,340 feet, it’s among the world’s highest mountains and, in fact, is the tallest freestanding mountain on the planet.